Since 2007, Jane Hart has compiled an annual Top Digital Tools for Learning List from the results of public surveys. Looking at the trends over time provides a useful overview of the tools that people are using to learn. In addition, her lists and annual analyses allow readers to discover new useful tools. Here’s my contribution: my ten top digital tools for learning in 2022, with brief descriptions of why and how I use them, plus some additional tools I’d sorely miss and a promising newcomer.
Although the glory days of Twitter have passed, it still remains my best source of breaking news and interesting content from interesting people. It’s also the social media platform where I have the most visibility, with 1,000 – 10,000 tweet impressions per day.
And the tool I use to tweet and read is the web app TweetDeck. It’s a set of customizable columns that I’ve set up to show the tweets of a private list of accounts I follow, mentions, notifications, direct messages, and several customized search results for my various Twitter accounts. I love how easy it is to create temporary custom columns on the fly and tweet (immediately or scheduled) with automatic URL shortening.
Here’s a screenshot of five of the columns’ contents while I was writing this:
While there are plenty of ways to work with Twitter, TweetDeck is my favorite.
I use the RSS web feed reader Feedly to stay informed about new posts on many different websites that interest me. Feedly lets me know about new content, so I don’t have to check the sites to see if anything has changed. I use it on a web browser and the IOS app.
For the last 16 years I’ve posted one, occasionally two, blog posts per week on the privately hosted WordPress website you’re reading now. Sharing my thoughts by writing about interesting things is probably the best way I learn.
Interacting with my readers on the 700+ posts via 1,800+ comments to date, plus our online conversations on Twitter and LinkedIn is a great way to build connections and explore content deeper. WordPress plugins allow me to sell my books and workshops on the site. No question, WordPress is an invaluable tool for learning, sharing, and controlling your content.
Over the last couple of years, Zoom has become the standard way, at least in the circles I travel, to connect with others online in real-time. It’s rock solid and has the core functionality I need to chat with a group or lead an online workshop. And just about everyone who goes online knows how to use it.
I am interested in so much, and can’t remember more than a tiny fraction of what I read and see anymore. When I read an interesting article about meeting design, facilitation, a technical hack, or a tasty-looking recipe, I know that I’m not going to remember how to find it again in a week, month or year. So I capture it in Evernote. When I want to make chimichurri sauce again or remind myself about the myth of learning styles, it’s easy to retrieve that saved URL, set of client meeting notes, diagram, or memorable quote with a few keystrokes.
Sometimes, humble operating systems contain little gems. In my opinion, Apple’s Preview is one of them. I like to illustrate my blog posts with pictures, and Preview is the core tool I use to manipulate and convert images. Yes, I use other tools, but Preview will do most of what I need.
The web browser. Can’t do much with the internet without it. I have both Chrome and Safari open all the time on my desktop Macintoshes, but I use Chrome more.
Merlin, what’s that you wonder? It’s the latest addition to my learning tools. I live in the countryside and am surrounded by birds. Yet despite years of trying to visually identify them I am simply incapable of remembering birds from one week to the next. The Merlin app has a visual guide to identify birds, but I don’t use it. Rather, I use its wonderful Sound ID, which listens to the birds around you and shows real-time suggestions for what’s singing.
I love using a different learning modality in place of an old one that hasn’t been very effective for me.
For a long time, I’ve needed to live in a world where my digital data is available to me anywhere and anytime. Where it’s protected from device loss or damage or hacking (I hope). I keep cloud and onsite backups of my desktop computers via a separate service, but Dropbox is the digital tool I use to store and access my critical data at any place and time.
Runners-up…
Here are four more digital tools that I frequently use.
Sometimes Evernote is overkill; it’s a big slow-loading app. I use Apple Notes to quickly store and retrieve common information that I can’t load permanently into my brain.
When I walk in the woods surrounding my home I often see flora I don’t recognize. (After 40 years living here, I’ve learned the fauna pretty well!) The Seek app is great for visually identifying plants.
A very recent addition to my toolkit is Midjourney, which I’ve started to use to create illustrations for my blog posts (including this one).
…and a promising newcomer
I’ve occasionally used Slack over the past few years for event planning and real-time production. Midjourney (see above) is integrated into Discord, which I’ve started to enjoy using for group synchronous and asynchronous chats. Time will tell if this becomes one of my top tools for learning.
I’m still using the iPhone 5S, iPad 3, and the Tumi Alpha “everything bag” I gushed over in my 2013 app update, though I’m coveting an iPhone 6S, a newer iPad, and, maybe, an Apple Watch.
Rather than listing additions and removals from my two previous posts, I’m presenting a complete alphabetized current list, including updated descriptions that incorporate any notable new features I use. An [!] next to an app indicates it’s stood the test of time, while an [N] means it’s a new addition since my 2013 update.
Ready? Here are my favorite iPhone iPad apps for event planners.
Birdbrain, [!] $2.99
If you are active on Twitter (and I’d argue that most event planners should be) Birdbrain is a fantastic way to manage your Twitter network. The app provides an excellent overview and management of your followers and those you follow. Birdbrain handles multiple accounts, makes it easy to investigate anyone on Twitter, allows you to track unfollows as they occur, list people you’re following who don’t follow you, display mentions and retweets, and provides informative statistics showing changes in your Twitter stats over time. The only feature I’d like to see added is the ability to show inactive accounts you’re following. Recommended!
Dropbox, [!] free for 2 GB, Dropbox Pro $9.99/month or $99/year
I’ve been using Dropbox for years on my office Macs, iPad, and iPhone.
Dropbox keeps your files safe, synced, and easy to share between multiple computers and devices. All contents of the Dropbox folder on all linked devices (Macintosh, Linux, Windows, IOS, Android; even Blackberry and Kindle Fire!) running Dropbox are automatically synced when new files or changes are detected. You don’t have to be continually online; all changes sync once your computer has an Internet connection again. You can create shared folders, allowing several people to collaborate on a set of files.
The free service gives you 2GB of space on Dropbox’s servers, which was plenty for me for many years (and Dropbox offers ways to increase the free limit) but last year I took the plunge and upgraded to Dropbox Pro (see below). A nice feature is that the server stores the last 30 days of versions of your files, so you can revert to an older version if needed. If you want more storage, you can upgrade to Dropbox Pro for $9.99/month or $99/year. This paid upgrade includes 1TB of storage plus unlimited older versions of your files, remote wipe, read-only shared folders, and password-protected shared links. It’s worth every penny to me.
The Dropbox app allows you to access your Dropbox files on your iPhone or iPad. Image, music, movie, Word, PowerPoint, Excel, PDF, Keynote, Pages, Numbers, HTML, and many file formats can be displayed by the app. Unlike the desktop versions of Dropbox, files are not stored automatically on a mobile device but are uploaded on request by marking them as Favorites.
Dropbox also includes a web interface for your files, so you can access them (and older versions) from any Internet-connected computer.
While I was writing my books, I stored all my important files on Dropbox. It gave me great peace of mind to know that up-to-date versions of my book’s many files were being automatically saved remotely and on all my office computers.
Evernote, [!] free, Plus $24.99/year, Premium $49.99/year
Evernote is my go-to application for capturing information I want to be able to find in the future. I use it mainly for web pages, but it will file text notes, pdfs, spreadsheets, photos, voice memos, and screenshots too. Evernote clients are available for most mobile and desktop operating systems. Everything captured is made searchable—you can add your own tags if you like—and can be stored in specific categories (“notebooks”) if desired. The iPad version takes full advantage of the large screen. Your notes are stored on Evernote’s servers and locally and are synced to your mobile device and to Mac OS X and Windows computers running an Evernote client.
Evernote supplies web clipping functionality for all major desktop and mobile browsers, so, with a few clicks, it’s easy to safely capture that article you think could be really useful one day.
You can upload up to 60MB per month (with a maximum single note size of 25MB) using the free Evernote service, and this has always been adequate for me. The Plus version raises the upload maximum to 1GB/month with a maximum single note size of 50MB, the Premium service to 10GB/month with a maximum single note size of 200MB. Plus and Premium include some additional benefits, none of which have tempted me to pay for them. Yet.
GateGuru, [!] free
GateGuru is an airport information app that was purchased by TripAdvisor in June 2013. While it attempts to replicate some of Tripit‘s functionality, I use it to scope out the places to eat (aka amenities) at airports. The traveler’s reviews, while sometimes spotty, usually allow you to pick out the best place to satisfy your current gustatory desires, and I’ve occasionally found a real gem tucked away on Concourse C that I’d otherwise have missed.
GoodReader, [!] $4.99
GoodReader is an inexpensive app that allows you to transfer files to your mobile device, by Wifi or from an Internet cloud server, and reliably view them. Like the Dropbox viewer, it supports a huge range of file formats. Unlike other mobile file readers, GoodReader has no problem rapidly opening, displaying, and responsively scrolling through the 350-page ebook version of Conferences That Work and other large files I’ve thrown at it.
GoodReader syncs beautifully with Dropbox, allowing me to work on files on any computing device and then upload them to a GoodReader folder for convenient viewing. When I’m facilitating or presenting at an event, I’ll typically use GoodReader to display all relevant files in a multi-tabbed app window, allowing me to refer to them quickly when needed.
Google Voice, [!] free app, most but not all services are free
Google Voice has been around for years and has a bazillion options, many of which I don’t really understand. But that’s OK, because I find it very useful for three things: a) transferring calls made to my cell to my office phone when I’m at home where my cell phone doesn’t work (ah, the joys of living in rural Vermont), b) replacing my cell phone provider’s voice mail and sending me an email and a noble attempt at transcription when I don’t answer my mobile, and c) texting. Now let’s be clear: I hate texting and refuse to pay the inflated rates that carriers charge for it on my cell phone, but sometimes it’s the only way to communicate with some people. Google Voice to the rescue! I can text for free from my free Google Voice number, which works with strangers as long as I let them know in the message that it’s me, Adrian Segar, texting them.
Incidentally, though I haven’t yet used this feature, calls made using Google Voice from outside the U.S. to U.S. numbers cost just 1¢/minute; a pretty good rate!
Messages, [N] free
This is a no-brainer, especially if you’re a cheapskate like me that won’t pay more for texting. If someone has an iDevice, I can message them without paying for texts. Unlike texting, you get to discover whether your message/photo/movie was actually delivered or not. (If Messages could tell me the recipient saw my message, that would be even better, but I guess we’ll have to wait until brain monitor functionality is built into IOS 42.) Works well for me. I’ve heard there can be glitches if you abandon your iDevice and go over to The Dark Android Side, but you’d never do that would you? Would you?
OpenTable, [!] free
OpenTable allows you to make free reservations at ~32,000 restaurants in the United States, Canada, Germany, Japan, Mexico, and the UK. No more phone calls to a restaurant only to get an answering machine, having to leave a message, and wondering whether you’ll get the reservation you wanted or not. The app works quickly and many reservations give you OpenTable points which can eventually (you’d have to use it a lot) be redeemed for a discount off your meal.
Post-it® Plus, [N] free
I’ve written in detail about this little gem here. Suffice it to say that if you do any kind of group work with sticky notes, this is a great tool for capturing, organizing, and sharing multitudes of these colorful little rectangles. Since I wrote the linked review, 3M has continued to add new features: you can now edit notes and add additional digital notes to existing boards.
Register, [!, formerly Square] app free, card transaction fees extra
Square’s Register app provides a neat inexpensive way to easily accept card payments. You can create lists of the items or services you sell. It took me just a few minutes to set up Register for selling my first book three ways—paperback, ebook, or combo—at a presentation or trade show. When you sign up for the service, Square sends you a free swipe card reader that plugs into your iPad or iPhone. They have a free contactless (NFC) and chip card reader shipping soon, in time for the new EMV chip credit card merchant obligations that will be in force in the U.S. later this year. You can also process cash sales and send receipts to a buyer’s email address. Square provides a complete downloadable record of all your sales.
Square charges reasonable card fees: 2.75% for a swiped card and 3.5% + $0.15 for a keyed-in card. These are the only charges for the service; there’s no monthly fee or minimum and no contract or merchant account is required. This is a great app for selling promotional items at events.
Simplenote, [!] free
I rarely need elaborately formatted documents. What I do need is a simple text editor that imports ASCII, RTF or HTML files, backs up my writing safely, and synchronizes it across my mobile and office computers.
That’s exactly what Simplenote, combined with copies of Notational Velocity (free, open source) on my office computers do. Anything I write in Simplenote on my iPad (I rarely use it on my iPhone, though it works there) gets saved and backed up to the Internet cloud (on a free account at Simplenote). When I open Notational Velocity on an office computer, my notes there are synchronized. Similarly, any notes updated on my office machines are synchronized to the iPad when I open Simplenote. All communications are encrypted.
Both Simplenote and Notational Velocity offer blazing-fast search and support thousands of notes.
While Simplenote now sports a Mac desktop version, I prefer to stick with Notational Velocity there because the former doesn’t support styled text (bold, italic, etc.)
For just pure writing, safely backed up and synchronized, you can’t beat the combination of these two free apps!
Swarm [formerly Foursquare], [! & N] free
Foursquare, started as a game (be the mayor of places, win badges, and have more points than your friends) and a way to see where your friends are and what they’re doing. I live mostly in a rural area and, while I have occasionally discovered and met up with friends I didn’t know were near me, my main use of this service is to store a searchable history of where I’ve been. When did I drop off that luggage to be repaired? What was the name of that great place I ate dinner with Susie in Atlanta? When exactly was I in Anguilla in 2009? Foursquare’s history of my check-ins is often useful in unexpected ways.
In 2014, Foursquare tried to reposition their app by splitting it into two: Foursquare, a Yelp look-alike competitor, and Swarm, which would remain the “check-in” app. The move did not go well, especially after Foursquare removed the mayor feature in Swarm which took out some of the fun of checking-in. The company’s missteps cost it popularity—a lot less people seem to be checking in recently. Recently, they added back mayorships. Yes, I admit it, it’s fun to triumphantly win back the mayorship of my favorite local restaurant once in a while, but the history feature is the main reason I use Swarm these days.
Waze, [!] free
Waze is my favorite traffic and navigation app of the many that I’ve tried (though some Uber drivers have told me that Google Maps now has more helpful junction navigation in big cities). Unlike traditional GPS units with traffic updates that are often found to be woefully out of date, Waze uses information from its own users to detect traffic snarls and reroutes you on the fly when necessary to avoid that accident that happened up ahead five minutes ago or the rush hour traffic jam building up on the interstate you normally drive on to get home. Its estimates of arrival time, even on long trips, are astonishingly accurate. Owned by Google, my only concern is that the company will start using my location in nefarious ways. If I start seeing too many annoying ads promoting the tattoo parlor I’m passing by I’ll reconsider. Until then, this is an amazing app that has saved me hours of driving and frustration, and shown me countless new neighborhoods as I bypass traffic where other drivers sit fuming.
Wunderground, [N] free
Goodbye Weatherbug Elite, Yahoo Weather (still think of you fondly, loved your simplicity), and all the other weather apps I’ve dated the last few years. I’m going steady with Wunderground now. Darling W (yes, we’re on first initial terms), your gorgeous graph interface makes it easy to get a quick big picture of the next ten days, your hour by hour forecasts are so handy for deciding whether to move the social indoors, and your weather map predictions load so fast. I’d be a fool to look at anyone else. Sure, W, I admit to a fickle past with weather apps, but now I’m seriously thinking about settling down for good. With you, always by my side…So, what’s it going to be like in Maine next week?
So event professionals, what have I missed? Do you have other favorite iPhone/iPad apps for event planners I haven’t mentioned here? Let the world know in the comments!
I’ve had my 3G iPad for two weeks, and it’s already changing how I work. And not just when I’m away from the Mac Mini and MacBook Pro in my office.Here are 13 great Apple apps for event planners, most of which are free. (Unless specifically mentioned, you can assume that all apps work on the iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch.)
Simplenote, free, premium version $8.99/year
I purchased Pages for the iPad but haven’t used it yet. I rarely need elaborately formatted documents. What I do need is a simple text editor that imports ASCII, RTF or HTML files, backs up my writing safely, and synchronizes it across my mobile and office computers.
That’s exactly what Simplenote, combined with copies of Notational Velocity (free, open source) on my office computers do. Anything I write in Simplenote on my iPad is saved and backed up to the Internet cloud (on a free account at Simplenote). When I open Notational Velocity on an office computer, my notes there synchronize. Similarly, any notes updated on my office machines synchronize to the iPad when I open Simplenote. In addition, Simplenote encrypts all communications.
The premium version of Simplenote removes small ads that appear at the top of the Notes column, and adds automatic version backups (like Dropbox, see below) and a few other features. The ads aren’t intrusive, so I’m staying with the free version for now.
Both Simplenote and Notational Velocity offer blazing fast search and support thousands of notes.
For just pure writing, safely backed up and synchronized, you can’t beat the combination of these two free apps!
Dropbox & Box.net, both free
What if you want to access other kinds of documents on your iPad? I’ve been using the wonderful Dropbox and handy Box.net for some time on my office Macs, and now there are iPad and iPhone clients for both.
Dropbox works very much like the Simplenote premium service described above when installed on Macintosh computers. All contents of the Dropbox folder on a computer (Macintosh, Linux or Windows) running Dropbox are automatically synced when new files or changes are detected. You don’t have to be continually online; all changes sync once your computer has an Internet connection again. You can create shared folders, allowing several people to collaborate on a set of files.
The free service gives you 2GB of space on Dropbox’s servers, which is plenty for me. A nice feature is that the server stores the last 30 days of versions of your files, so you can revert to an older version if needed. If you want more storage, you can pay $9.99/month for 50GB or $19.99 for 100GB, with these paid plans including the storage of unlimited older versions of your files.
The Dropbox app allows you to access your Dropbox files on your iPhone or iPad. Image, music, movie, Word, PowerPoint, Excel, PDF, HTML, and text file formats can be displayed by the app. <https://www.dropbox.com/help/80> Unlike the desktop versions of Dropbox, files are not stored automatically on a mobile device but are uploaded on request by marking them as Favorites.
Dropbox also includes a web interface to your files, so you can access them (and older versions) from any Internet connected computer.
While I was writing my book, I stored all my important files on Dropbox. It gave me great peace of mind to know that up-to-date versions of my book’s many files were being automatically saved remotely and on all my office computers.
Box.net supplies similar functionality to Dropbox, except that it doesn’t have a desktop client. The free Box.net service has only 1GB of web-storage and a rather paltry 25MB file size limit. Paid plans are available, but they are less generous than Dropbox’s. Since Dropbox added file sharing features I don’t use Box.net much, but it offers a simple way to provide sharing of files with others and another 1GB of free web-storage is not to be sniffed at. The mobile app makes it easy to share a file via email.
Square, app free, card transaction fees extra
Square is a neat inexpensive way to easily accept card payments for small amounts (up to $60). On the iPad you can create lists of the items or services you sell. It took me just a few minutes to set up Square for selling my book three ways—paperback, ebook, or combo—at a presentation or trade show. When you sign up for the service, Square sends you a free card reader that plugs into your iPad or iPhone. You can also process cash sales and send receipts to a buyer’s email address. Square provides a complete downloadable record of all your sales.
Square charges reasonable card fees: 2.75% + $0.15 for a swiped card and 3.5% + $0.15 for a keyed-in card. These are the only charges for the service; there’s no monthly fee or minimum and no contract or merchant account required. This would be a great app for selling promotional items at events.
GoodReader, $0.99
GoodReader is an inexpensive app that allows you to transfer large files to your mobile device, by Wifi or from an Internet cloud server, and reliably view them. Like the Dropbox viewer, it supports a wide range of file formats. Unlike other mobile file readers, GoodReader has no problem rapidly opening, displaying, and responsively scrolling through the 350-page ebook version of Conferences That Work and other large files I’ve thrown at it.
Instapaper, free, Pro version $4.99
Overwhelmed by cool web pages that you don’t have time to read right now, but don’t want to forget? Instapaper can help! Just set up a free account, add Instapaper’s <Read Later> bookmarklet to your browser’s toolbar and click it to save any webpage for later viewing. While you’re waiting for your car repair, open the Instapaper app and browse an optimized text-version (nice) or the full graphics version of the pages you’ve saved.
The Pro version is optimized for the iPad, and adds some features I don’t need, but I’ve had no problem running the free iPhone version on my iPad.
TweetDeck, free Until Twitter comes out with a free version of Tweetie my favorite Twitter client for the iPad is Tweetdeck. It makes full use of the iPad screen, showing two columns in portrait and three in landscape mode. The URL shortener works reliably, though I miss the tweetshrink button available in the desktop version that’s useful when a tweet is just a few characters too long.
And here are still more great Apple apps for event planners.
Adobe Ideas, free, iPad only
Need to make a rough sketch? Give Adobe Ideas a whirl. What you draw is vector-based, so you can enlarge or reduce drawing elements without getting an attack of the jaggies. It’s easy to zoom the canvas too, so you can make it larger if your drawing gets more complicated than you originally expected. Separate drawing and photo layers allow you to annotate photos. This could be useful for adding notes to photos taken during a site visit. And a 50-level undo allows me to erase the frequent mistakes I make when I try and draw anything.
WifiTrak, literally priceless!
On researching this useful app, which I purchased last year, I discovered that Apple, in March with very little explanation, removed all wifi access-point finders from the App store! (Luckily it is still available on my touch.) This is a shame, because the Wifi networks discovered by my Apple device settings are only a subset of what these devices can actually connect to. WifiTrak is able to find useable access points that my iPod Touch otherwise does not see. I hope this app will return to the Apps store so you can take advantage of its superior performance.
Beat the Traffic(iPhone & Touch), Beat the Traffic HD (iPad), both free {No longer available as of September 2017} What event professional doesn’t want to avoid backed up traffic while driving in town? This excellent app provides live traffic maps, showing traffic speeds and accidents in most major U.S. cities. It even includes live traffic cam feeds in places! A touch can only use the app if Wi-Fi connected; not very practical while driving. I don’t recommend Beat the Traffic for solo use while driving. But a passenger can help you avoid traffic snarls, and the twenty minute future traffic prediction available on the iPad version can be quite helpful.
Evernote, free, Premium service $5/month or $45/year [Update November 2024: no longer recommended due to big rise in subscription cost. Instead, try the free Joplin.] Evernote is my go-to application for capturing information I want to be able to find in the future. I use it mainly for web pages, but it will also file text notes, pdfs, spreadsheets, photos, voice memos, and screenshots. Evernote clients are available for most mobile and desktop operating systems. Everything captured is made searchable—you can add your own tags if you like—and can be stored in specific categories (“notebooks”) if desired. The iPad version takes full advantage of the large screen. Your notes are stored on Evernote’s servers and locally. They are also synced to your mobile devices and Mac OS X and Windows computers running an Evernote client.
You can upload up to 40MB per month (with a maximum single note size of 25MB) using the free Evernote service. This has always been adequate for me. The Premium service raises the upload maximum to 500MB/month with a maximum single note size of 50MB, and can store any kind of file.
iTalk Lite, free, not officially supported for the iPad but seems to work just fine (no longer available as of September, 2021) Want to record a conversation, a speech, or the amazing jazz quartet that’s playing at your event? This useful app turns your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad into a high-quality recording device that’s very easy to use. There’s a iTalk Premium version ($1.99) that omits small ads and doesn’t limit the size of an emailed recording. The app includes iTalk Sync, which allows you to transfer your recordings to a desktop computer via Wifi. If you have a touch, you’ll need a microphone and I highly recommend the $25 Belkin TuneTalk Stereo which plugs in to the dock connector and provides amazing quality for such an inexpensive device.
WeatherBug Elite for iPad, free
This is currently the best weather app I’ve found for the iPad. You see everyone on one well-designed screen: weather current conditions, forecasts, animated radar, temperature, windspeed and pressure maps, live weather cam images and more. There’s an iPhone/touch version that I haven’t tried. I tried the big kahuna app in this category, The Weather Channel. It looks gorgeous but crashes repeatedly on my iPad and doesn’t display animated maps correctly.
There they are, 13 great Apple apps for event planners. Which apps do you like? Let us know in the comments. And feel free to disagree, suggest alternatives, and correct any errors that may have crept into this review!
Since 2007, Jane Hart has compiled an annual Top Digital Tools for Learning List from the results of public surveys. Looking at the trends over time provides a useful overview of the tools that people are using to learn. In addition, her lists and annual analyses allow readers to discover new useful tools. Here’s my contribution: my ten top digital tools for learning in 2022, with brief descriptions of why and how I use them, plus some additional tools I’d sorely miss and a promising newcomer.
While there are plenty of ways to work with Twitter, TweetDeck is my favorite.
Dropbox
OpenTable
Simplenote
Waze
Simplenote
